I wonder if Bruce Springsteen feels differently about the lyrics of “I’m on Fire” (“Hey little girl is your daddy home / Did he go away and leave you all alone?”) now that he has a daughter? _I_ sure do. *gag*
I’ve been going back and forth between our two local animal shelters, looking for our next cat. A couple of times, I’ve hesitated about a cat and it’s been gone the next time I went. I think it’s most likely at this point that we’ll adopt a kitten: I feel less shy with kittens. When I consider an adult cat, I feel a little awk about it, like it’s weird to bring this stranger to our house and expect her to just live with us because we say so. On the other hand, I love how with an adult cat I can see what it’s LIKE. So I continue to dither. I’m also dithering because I’m not sure I want to inflict another cat on our current cat. She seems to enjoy being an only, and I’ve enjoyed feeling like seeking out the company of a cat rather than brushing cats off every surface.
I’ve been on a reading kick. I seem to be getting one intense, thought-provoking book after another. It’s a little tiring. First I read Middlesex. Then I read The Help. Then I read Handle With Care, but after 100 pages I was done with that kind of stress so I skipped ahead to the last 15. Now I’m reading Olive Kitteridge.
I’m also watching the second season of The L Word, so I am just about scalp-deep in thought-provoking.
Henry just asked me if a rollerskate was a quadruped.
I registered the twins for kindergarten this fall. That seems NUTS to me. Since they were a year old I’ve been saying it would be unexpectedly soon that they’d be in school (I started saying it during the OMG Pregnant Again! panic), but it really did come up fast. Two years after that, it’ll be Henry in school. And then what? Let’s not turn our minds to it.
I always thought Bruce Springsteen meant her husband in that song. But I could just be sticking up for him because we are both from NJ and it is a rule that one must stand by Bruce Springsteen. Also, it is too gross, otherwise – “Tell me now baby, is he good to you? Can he do to you the things that I do?”. Blech.
On the cat issue –two adult cats can have a conflict. Your current cat is female — so you should be looking at male cats for sure. Two female cats often clash for years, while a male and female will usually settle into a decent pattern.
We had a very strong female cat, so we got a very energetic 6 month old male cat — so far, it’s working. They have a morning run/fight — but, generally get along.
Oh me too. But the metaphor (woman = little girl, husband = daddy) is so icky!
Having kids gone at school all day is an adjustment. But I will tell you, in all honesty, that the time just vanishes without a trace and often with very little to show for it. It is the weirdest thing. When my kids were in preschool, I would get SO MUCH done in two hours time. Now, my kids are gone for six hours at a time and I get half as much done. Who knows? Isn’t that weird?
Honestly, I am in awe that you read at all and write several blogs with three preschool-age kids at home.
Do you have full-day or half-day Kindergarten where you are? Poor Henry won’t know what to do with himself.
E. will be in the very first class of full-day Kindergarten in our district (the year after next). I am already fretting.
1. Bruce Springsteen? YES. ICK. Oh, just ICK. I love that song but sometimes cannot get over that part.
2. “Henry just asked me if a rollerskate was a quadruped.” HAHAHAAAAAHAHAHA
It’s half-day. I think I’ll use the time to run errands with Henry at first, to get him used to it!
I read I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb and had to completely take a break from weighty books to let my mind and heart recover. Reading some Terry Pratchett in the meantime :)
BIG yes on “I’m on Fire”. I really like the song, but that metaphor is just icky.
I LOVED Middlesex and The Help, and I think Olive Kitteridge would be on my “all-time Top Ten” list of books I’ve read. I hope you love it.
I am with you on the kindergarten thing. I can hardly bring myself to think of it and I have to register d this month. eek
“I’m on Fire” is, to me, the same as Ralph Fienne’s character in The English Patient. All sexy, yes, but if you think about it too much it’s just weird.
Sometimes I wake up with the sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head and only you, can cool my desire….ewwwww…..sheets soaking wet….
Kindergarten. I blogged about it, I was in such turmoil about our neighborhood school which has 32 kids in each K class with only one teacher and a part-time aid, or the private K which has 15 kids and 2 full-time teachers. I am a former public school teacher, I want to support public school,and I want Drew at our neighborhood school. But 32 five year olds? One teacher? Gah. Had to do what I thought was best. Add to that just the thought that she – like yours – are actually old enough to be in school like this already. Overload.
Oh wow, that Bruce Springsteen song is totally ICK to me now.
Henry= BRILLIANT with the quadruped question.
OOOH, I loved The Help, Middlesex is my all time favorite book EVER and I liked Olive Kitterege so much that my copy has been pressed on several good friends so far. I would love to read your reviews of them all. (And Jodi Picoult? I can’t read her anymore. My husband calls her book genre “babies in PERIL” or “moms with INSOMNIA”.)
I just picked up Middlesex via Bookmooch.
That Springsteen song has always skeeved me out, but after reading these comments and seeing the lyrics in print, I will NEVER be able to hear it again without losing my lunch. Thanks everyone. ;)
My, what an avid reader you are! (…what? too soon?)
I loved both Middlesex and The Help. I think The Help is my new favorite “book to recommend”… I cried on the last couple of pages, tears just leaking out as she said goodbye to Mae Mobly.
Kindergarten! And the free time seem both luxurious and daunting, doesn’t it? Makes me really have to face “what am I going to be when I grow up?” Also, makes me want another baby and put off that question for 5+ more years. =)
Oh, kitties. The “searching” must be fun, though, right?
Marie- Ha ha ha! I would say more VORACIOUS.
The cat shopping IS so fun! One reason I’m so dithery is that I don’t really want it to be over!
like joanne, i’m genetically programmed to love bruce unconditionally. and jon bon jovi as well. they are incapable of grossing me out (at least through song lyrics). :-)
OMIG! I have to register sophie for kindergarten too this month and it is so WILD to me.
I just read Olive Kitteridge (thanks to Clueless But Hopeful for the copy!) and am passing it on soon.
My daughter is always pointing out which animals are quadrupeds. Love Dinosaur Train.
Swistle, I thought of another over-used adjective before noun combo. This is the one that drives me nuts, though I’ve said it and probably written it too: “amazing experience”. ALWAYS ALWAYS “amazing” before experience. =)
OMG I’ve always thought the lyrics to that song are disgusting. It turns my stomach.
I read Olive Kitterage! It was my least favorite of Elizabeth Strout’s novels. You should read her others too when you’re done.
Just wait until you have to buy a razor/deoderent for your child – now that is WEIRD.
Time *does* go by fast, doesn’t it? I swear it was yesterday that I could hold my niece in the palms of my hands… and she’s turning two in May.
I thought Middlesex was just eh. I really didn’t get why everyone thought it was so great when I was on the MEH, OKAY side of the fence.
A friend of mine had weekly L Word watching parties last year, but I hadn’t seen the earlier seasons, so I didn’t want to spoil my later Netflix viewing. Still have only seen about 3/4 of one episode… Looked overly dramatic, but I know things always look that way if you come into the story late.
We adopted an adult dog and it has been nothing but awesome. We picked her based fully on personality and it worked out PERFECTLY. Also, I think an adult animal of any kind would rather live with you because you say so than in a shelter because they say so. I mean, if I were an animal I’d rather go to a loving home than be in a shelter. And no matter what home the cats end up going to, they’ll have no real say in the matter, right? So it might as well be your home.
Not to mention that other Bruce song, “Tunnel of Love.” I mean, I like it, but it has also prevented me from ever going on another mechanized carnival ride.
I’m sure it’s because I’m such a Springsteen fan that I’ve always just thought “Sugar Daddy.” Of course, I thought the same thing about Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Daddy.” Now I’m starting to doubt myself. Wait. No, it’s okay. It’s Bruce.
It’s easier to introduce a kitten to a house with an adult cat. That way the kitten ‘learns it’s place’ so to speak, and your adult cat won’t feel as threatened because it’s easier to intimidate a kitten. Be sure to give them a nice long time to get acquainted. Some of the best advice I got was about bedding swopping. Let you adult cat sleep on a towel or something, in one room, the kitten on something similar in another, then swop the towels around. Gives each cat a chance to smell the other and get used to it. Feeding them both on opposite sides of a closed door is also helpful! Good luck!
I don’t think that he meant ‘little girl’, as in child. I think it was in more of the daddy-as-boyfriend/husband reference. At least, that’s how I think about it, because otherwise, GROSS.
AND, hooray for finally having public K in that nutty town!
HATED Handle With Care. I read it three months ago, and right now I’m mad again, because I hated it just that much.
To be fair, I also skipped a good chunk of it (with prodigous skimming), because it was so torturous.
Gar. Right now I am actively hating that book again.
And you are so right, that song has always skeeved me out.